• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.91-97
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• 2013

Quantifying the nanoscale force between the atomic force microscopy (AFM) probe of a force-sensing cantilever and the sample is one of the challenges faced by AFM researchers. The normal force calibration is straightforward; however, the lateral force is complicated due to the twisting motion of the cantilever. Force measurement in a liquid environment is often needed for biological applications; however, calibrating the force of the AFM probes for those applications is more difficult owing to the limitations of conventional calibration methods. In this work, an accurate nondestructive lateral force calibration method using multiple pivot loading was proposed for liquid environment. The torque sensitivity at the location of the integrated probe was extrapolated based on accurately measured torque sensitivities across the cantilever width along a few cantilever lengths. The uncertainty of the torque sensitivity at the location of the integrated tip was about 13%, which is significantly smaller than those for other calibration methods in a liquid environment.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.289-296
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• 2012

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used for imaging surfaces and measuring surface forces at the nano-scale. Force calibration is important for the quantitative measurement of forces at the nano-scale using AFM. Normal force calibration is relatively straightforward, whereas the lateral force calibration is more complicated since the lateral stiffness of the cantilever is often comparable to the contact stiffness. In this work, the lateral force calibrations of the rectangular cantilever were performed using torsional Sader's method, thermal noise method, and wedge calibration method. The lateral optical lever sensitivity for the thermal noise method was determined from the friction loop under various normal forces as well. Experimental results showed that the discrepancies among the results of the different methods were as large as 30% due to the effect of the contact stiffness on the lateral force calibration of the cantilever used in this work. After correction for the effect of contact stiffness, all the calibration results agreed with each other, within experimental uncertainties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.587-597
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• 2010

Analysis of the behavior of a laterally loaded pile is important in the design of critical civil structures. Recently, the electric strain gauge has been widely used to measure the strains along the pile. The electric strain gauge, due to lack of durability, is inappropriate in the use of long-term measurements. Herein, the feasibility of implementing the FBG sensor was investigated using a cantilever-type calibrator in laboratory. A special calibrating tool called "cantilever-calibrator" was used to calibrate the FBG sensors. The calibrator consists of a special calibration beam, a holding-clamp at one end of the beam, and a micrometer on the other end. Three FBG sensors were installed on the calibration beam. The strains measured by FBG sensors were compared with those calculated theoretically using cantilever beam theory. The calibration factor of FBG sensors were suggested to compensate the difference between measured and calculate strains.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.246-252
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• 2002

Two kinds of PZT cantilevers integrated with a piezoresistor have been newly designed, fabricated, and characterized for high speed AFM. In first cantilever, a piezoresistor is used to sense atomic force acting on tip, while in second cantilever, a piezoresistor is integrated to calibrate hysteresis and creep phenomena of the PZT cantilever. The fabricated PZT cantilevers provide high tip displacement of $0.55\mu\textrm{m}/V$ and high resonant frequency of 73 KHz. A new cantilever structure has been designed to prevent electrical coupling between sensor and PZT actuator and the proposed cantilever shows 5 times lower coupling voltage than that of the previous cantilever. The fabricated PZT cantilever shows a crisp scanned image at 1mm/sec, while the conventional piezo-tube scanner shows blurred image even at $180\mu\textrm{m}/sec$. The non-linear properties of the PZT actuator are also well calibrated using the piezoresistive sensor for calibration.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.160-166
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• 2013

There is an indispensable need for force calibration for quantitative nanoscale force measurement using atomic force microscopy. Calibrating the normal force is relatively straightforward, whereas doing so for the lateral force is often complicated because of the difficulty in determining the optical lever sensitivity. In particular, the lateral force calibration of a colloidal probe in a liquid environment often has a larger uncertainty as a result of the effects of the epoxy, the location of the colloidal particle on the cantilever, and a decrease in the quality factor. In this work, the lateral force of a colloidal probe using a reference cantilever with a known spring constant was calibrated in a liquid environment. By obtaining the spring constant and the lateral sensitivity at the equator of a spherical colloidal particle, the damage to the bottom surface of the colloidal particle could be eliminated. Further, it was shown that the effect of the contact stiffness on the determination of the lateral spring constant of the cantilever could be minimized. It was concluded that this method can be effectively used for the lateral force calibration of a colloidal probe in a liquid environment.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.203-211
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• 2012

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used as a tool, not only for imaging surfaces, but also for measuring surface forces and mechanical properties at the nano-scale. Force calibration is crucial for quantitatively measuring the forces that act between the AFM probe of a force sensing cantilever and a sample. In this work, the lateral force calibrations of a V-shaped cantilever were performed using the finite element method, multiple pivot loading, and thermal noise methods. As a result, it was shown that the multiple pivot loading method was appropriate for the lateral force calibration of a V-shaped cantilever. Further, through crosschecking of the abovementioned methods, it was concluded that the thermal noise method could be used for determining the lateral spring constants as long as the lateral deflection sensitivity was accurately determined. To obtain the lateral deflection sensitivity from the sticking portion of the friction loop, the contact stiffness should be taken into account.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2012

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been widely utilized as a versatile tool not only for imaging surfaces but also for understanding nano-scale interfacial phenomena. By measuring the responses of the photo detector due to bending and torsion of the cantilever, which are caused by the interactions between the probe and the sample surface, various interfacial phenomena and properties can be explored. One of the challenges faced by AFM researchers originates in the physics of measuring the small forces that act between the probe of a force sensing cantilever and the sample. To understand the interactions between the probe and the sample quantitatively, the force calibration is essential. In this work, the procedures used to calibrate AFM instrumentation for nano-scale force measurement in normal and lateral directions are reviewed.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.789-797
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• 2004

The nanoscale sensing and manipulation have become a challenging issue in micro/nano-robotic applications. In particular, a feedback sensor-based manipulation is necessary for realizing an efficient and reliable handling of particles under uncertain environment in a micro/nano scale. This paper presents a piezoresistive MEMS cantilever for nanoscale force measurement in micro robotics. A piezoresistive MEMS cantilever enables sensing of gripping and contact forces in nanonewton resolution by measuring changes in the stress-induced electrical resistances. The calibration of a piezoresistive MEMS cantilever is experimentally carried out. In addition, as part of the work on nanomanipulation with a piezoresistive MEMS cantilever, the analysis on the interaction forces between a tip and a material, and the associated manipulation strategies are investigated. Experiments and simulations show that a piezoresistive MEMS cantilever integrated into a micro robotic system can be effectively used in nanoscale force measurements and a sensor-based manipulation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.96-104
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• 2007

Calibration of the spring constants of atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers is one of the issues in biomechanics and nanomechanies for quantified force metrology at pieo- or nano Newton level. In this paper, we present an AFM cantilever calibration system: the Nano Force Calibrator (NFC), which consists of a precision balance and a one-dimensional stage. Three types of AFM cantilevers (contact and tapping mode) with different shapes (beam and V) and spring constants (42, 1, 0.06 N $m^{-1}$) are investigated using the NFC. The calibration results show that the NFC can calibrate the micro cantilevers ranging from 0.01 ${\sim}$ 100 N $m^{-1}$ with relative uncertainties of less than 2%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.637-640
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• 2005

In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of a piezoresistive AFM cantilever in the range of $0\~30{\mu}N$ by using nano force calibrator (NFC), which consists of a high precision balance with resolution of 1 nN and 1-D fine positioning stage. Brief modeling of the cantilever is presented and then, the calibration results are shown. Tests revealed a linear relationship between the probing force and sensor output (resistance change), and the force vs. deflection. From this relationship, the force constant of the cantilever was calculated to 3.45 N/m with a standard deviation of 0.01 N/m. It shows that there is a big difference between measured and nominal spring constant of 1 N/m provided by the manufacturer s specifications.